{"id":658766,"date":"2026-05-09T19:19:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T19:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/658766\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T19:19:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T19:19:37","slug":"claude-morin-adviser-to-quebec-premiers-and-paid-rcmp-informant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/658766\/","title":{"rendered":"Claude Morin, adviser to Quebec premiers and paid RCMP informant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

JACQUES BOISSINOT\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

When journalists called Claude Morin \u201cThe Sphinx,\u201d they had in mind his knowing smile, unflappable manner and penchant for backroom intrigues.<\/p>\n

In a twist worthy of that nickname, Mr. Morin, the man who shaped the constitutional demands of five consecutive Quebec premiers, turned out to have an additional secret \u2013 he was also a police informant.<\/p>\n

Mr. Morin died Tuesday at the age of 96, Quebec media reported. <\/p>\n

He was the father of \u00e9tapisme, the gradualist approach that the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois espoused, requiring a referendum before separation. And he was one of the bureaucrats who played a pivotal role during the watershed years of Quebec\u2019s Quiet Revolution.<\/p>\n

But his legacy as an \u00e9minence grise is clouded by the revelation that, while a high-ranking PQ member and adviser to party leader Ren\u00e9 L\u00e9vesque, he was also a paid source of the RCMP.<\/p>\n

He had been the epitome of the academic and public servant, a pipe-smoking homebody who liked to putter in the book-lined basement of his suburban house. Then came a tale straight out of a spy thriller, with secret meetings, hush payments and covert recordings.<\/p>\n

Mr. Morin said he agreed to meet RCMP officers because he thought he could outwit them. \u201cI am shrewd enough to learn more than they did,\u201d he told The Globe and Mail in 1992.<\/p>\n

Mr. Morin left \u201can indelible mark on Quebec society,\u201d Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon posted on social media Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be pointless to deny that some questions remain regarding Claude Morin\u2019s legacy within the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois. But I wish to pay tribute to the man who worked alongside Ren\u00e9 L\u00e9vesque for many years,\u201d Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon wrote.<\/p>\n

Even before Mr. Morin\u2019s interaction with the Mounties became public, journalists had noted a paradox in his life.<\/p>\n

While a mandarin who whispered in the ear of Quebec premiers, he was suspected of being a crypto-separatist. But once he joined the PQ, party purists suspected he was a crypto-federalist.<\/p>\n

All along, he insisted he was only being loyal to Quebec and its interests.<\/p>\n

He was born on May 16, 1929, in Montmorency, near Quebec City, the eldest of the seven children of Aline Dupont and \u00c9mile Morin.<\/p>\n

His father, a physician, was a staunch nationalist and a member of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society.<\/p>\n

Mr. Morin studied social sciences and economics at Laval University. Quebec was still in the grip of the authoritarian premier Maurice Duplessis.<\/p>\n

However, Mr. Morin\u2019s mentor at Laval was Rev. Georges-Henri L\u00e9vesque, dean of the social sciences school, whose progressive views influenced a generation of Quebec leaders.<\/p>\n

After getting a master\u2019s in social welfare from Columbia University in 1956, Mr. Morin was back in Quebec City, teaching, when Liberal leader Jean Lesage became premier in 1960, ushering in a period of social and political change.<\/p>\n

Through one of his former professors, now a deputy minister, Mr. Morin became a speechwriter for the new premier.<\/p>\n

He found that his ideas, inspired by Father L\u00e9vesque, were in tune with Mr. Lesage\u2019s reform-minded views. After three years, Mr. Morin was promoted to deputy minister for federal-provincial affairs.<\/p>\n

He became a key adviser during years when Quebec repeatedly sought broader legislative, diplomatic and fiscal autonomy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever he does \u2026 he is likely to keep Ottawa nervous,\u201d a 1969 Globe profile said.<\/p>\n

He had the same job with the next three premiers: Daniel Johnson Sr., Jean-Jacques Bertrand and Robert Bourassa.<\/p>\n

According to Mr. Morin, the referendum idea came while he worked for Mr. Bertrand.<\/p>\n

Whenever Quebec negotiated with Ottawa, federal officials claimed that provincial demands didn\u2019t represent the true wishes of the population. Mr. Bertrand started talking about holding referendums to bolster his position.<\/p>\n

The reaction from federal mandarins convinced him a referendum could provide effective leverage against Ottawa.<\/p>\n

In 1971, not seeing eye-to-eye with Mr. Bourassa, Mr. Morin stepped down and joined the PQ. After the party only won six seats in the 1973 election, Mr. Morin pushed leader Ren\u00e9 L\u00e9vesque to reassure voters by clarifying how independence would happen.<\/p>\n

Sovereignty shouldn\u2019t be done simply through a legislative vote and had to be reached by stages, he argued. The PQ\u2019s convention of 1974 adopted the idea that a referendum had to be held before Quebec could separate.<\/p>\n

When the PQ took power in 1976, Mr. L\u00e9vesque picked Mr. Morin as intergovernmental affairs minister, the point man for the referendum strategy and timing.<\/p>\n

The PQ lost the 1980 referendum and prime minister Pierre Trudeau announced he would patriate the Constitution unilaterally. Mr. L\u00e9vesque agreed to join with seven other premiers who wanted to block the move.<\/p>\n

But their common front collapsed in November, 1981, after the other premiers agreed to a deal with Mr. Trudeau during an all-night session from which Quebec was excluded.<\/p>\n

Nearly a decade later, nationalist feelings soared again in Quebec and Mr. Morin started getting involved in the PQ once more.<\/p>\n

Then, in May, 1992, Radio-Canada broke the story that Mr. Morin had been a paid RCMP source in the 1970s, code-named Q-1, then French Minuet.<\/p>\n

Mr. Morin acknowledged his contacts with the RCMP started at Laval University, when was part of a movie club that showed works of the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein. He said the dean, Father L\u00e9vesque, urged him to notify the RCMP to make sure he wouldn\u2019t be suspected of being a Communist sympathizer.<\/p>\n

The officer Mr. Morin met was Raymond Parent.<\/p>\n

Mr. Parent reappeared in 1966, when Mr. Morin was deputy minister for federal-provincial affairs. He said Mr. Lesage, the premier, told him that a federal emissary \u2013 Mr. Parent \u2013 wanted to discuss concerns about French provocateurs agitating for Quebec separation.<\/p>\n

They met in 1969, at the Ch\u00e2teau Frontenac hotel, again to talk about French interference, Mr. Morin said.<\/p>\n

Sometime in 1974 or early 1975, Mr. Morin said, he got a call from L\u00e9o Fontaine, another RCMP security service officer.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted to know if I had noticed anything unusual about foreigners that I was meeting. To my great surprise, he cited the names of some of my visitors in the past few months,\u201d Mr. Morin said in a statement released in 1992.<\/p>\n

The meetings continued and \u201cin March 1975, I had an indication that we might be on the verge of something more spicy,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy modest travelling expenses had come up before, but now my interlocutor proposed to `compensate\u2019 me for them! I understood that he wanted to offer me money, doubtless because he intended to touch on even more delicate matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Morin said he decided he had to go along to discover what the Mounties were up to.<\/p>\n

He tried to protect himself by writing a 40-page account that was notarized and sealed. He also made a secret recording of one meeting with Mr. Fontaine.<\/p>\n

On the tape, Mr. Morin is heard insisting he is meeting to thwart foreign interference in the PQ, not to assist Ottawa.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe I\u2019ll become a Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois minister,\u201d Mr. Morin said on the tape, \u201cand then, some years later, I don\u2019t know, even if Quebec was independent, something happens on the federal side and then [inaudible] because my name will come out, will I have to testify?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mounties too were secretly recording. A former officer, Gilbert Albert, later revealed he was tasked to hide video equipment ahead of a meeting at Quebec City\u2019s Le Concorde hotel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted something in case this blew up in our faces. … It was not blackmail, but a form of protection,\u201d Mr. Albert told Montreal CKAC radio in 1992.<\/p>\n

He said Mr. Morin didn\u2019t appear to say anything of substance.<\/p>\n

According to Mr. Morin, he received between $500 and $800 for each meeting, which took place every two months. Radio-Canada reported he got as much as $6,000 a month. He said he gave the money to charity or donated it to the party.<\/p>\n

Mr. Morin said he informed Mr. L\u00e9vesque of his activities in 1975, but the PQ leader didn\u2019t take it very seriously.<\/p>\n

Mr. Morin also looped in PQ justice minister Marc-Andr\u00e9 B\u00e9dard in early 1977.<\/p>\n

Mr. B\u00e9dard didn\u2019t approve that his colleague had accepted money, but he suggested Mr. Morin meet the Mounties a few more times to find out their targets before cutting off all contacts.<\/p>\n

The story took even more bizarre twists in 1981.<\/p>\n

The Quebec government kept a bureau in Ottawa. Its director, Loraine Lagac\u00e9, got the newly released report of the McDonald inquiry into illegal RCMP activities.<\/p>\n

Ms. Lagac\u00e9 said that someone had underlined a passage in the copy that she received \u2013 to draw her attention to a part that said the RCMP had paid sources within the PQ.<\/p>\n

She said that during a conversation she later had with Mr. Morin, the minister let it slip that he was one of those sources.<\/p>\n

Ms. Lagac\u00e9 said she went to inform the premier and Mr. L\u00e9vesque turned pale and slumped forward, clutching his chest.<\/p>\n

At a second meeting between Ms. Lagac\u00e9 and Mr. Morin, she said she goaded him into admitting the whole thing again while she covertly recorded him.<\/p>\n

There is still disagreement about when in the fall of 1981 Mr. L\u00e9vesque fully understood what Mr. Morin had done.<\/p>\n

Some accounts say this only unfolded after the November conference when the other premiers cobbled a deal without Quebec.<\/p>\n

Others say it happened the month before, suggesting that Mr. L\u00e9vesque went into the meeting knowing that his adviser had been an informant.<\/p>\n

In any case, according to Mr. L\u00e9vesque\u2019s chief of staff, Jean-Roch Boivin, the premier decided that Mr. Morin had to resign.<\/p>\n

Mr. Morin returned to university teaching but, by 1990, he was involved with the PQ again as support for independence rose in Quebec.<\/p>\n

According to Pierre Duchesne\u2019s biography of then-PQ leader Jacques Parizeau, Mr. Morin presided over an advisory committee, visited the party\u2019s parliamentary offices and wrote memos.<\/p>\n

However, his contribution ended in September 1991 when Mr. Parizeau got wind of Mr. Morin\u2019s past dealings with the RCMP and ordered the party to cut off contact with its former cabinet minister, Mr. Duchesne\u2019s biography said. Eight months later, Radio-Canada made the whole affair public.<\/p>\n

Shunned by his former party, Mr. Morin went back to academia. He spent the following years trying to defend his reputation, publishing books, writing blog posts, even contacting Wikipedia contributors to clarify his side of the story.<\/p>\n

But he was no longer sought as a pundit or political adviser. His legacy still divides political observers. Some thought that his foray in the cloak-and-dagger world was well-meaning but naive. Others questioned whether his referendum strategy had doomed the PQ to an unsolvable dynamic where voters were willing to give the party a mandate to govern but always stopped short of separation.<\/p>\n

Mr. Morin leaves his five children, Mich\u00e8le, Katia, Alain, \u00c9ric and Cyb\u00e8le, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His wife, Mary Lynch, predeceased him in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: JACQUES BOISSINOT\/The Canadian Press When journalists called Claude Morin \u201cThe Sphinx,\u201d they had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,2385,66],"class_list":["post-658766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-obituary","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}